Caroline Nokes meets representatives of the Windrush generation at the House of Commons.
Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images

The immigration minister Caroline Nokes has apologised in person to a series of people affected by the Windrush crisis, telling a meeting in parliament devoted to the issue that she would sort people’s plight as rapidly as possible.

Underlining the government’s eagerness to get a grip on a situation that has already seen Amber Rudd resign as home secretary, Nokes offered no new policies but said she would pledge to put right what had happened.

Q&A

What is the Windrush deportation crisis?

Who are the Windrush generation?

They are people who arrived in the UK after the second world war from Caribbean countries at the invitation of the British government. The first group arrived on the ship MV Empire Windrush in June 1948.

What happened to them?

An estimated 50,000 people faced the risk of deportation if they had never formalised their residency status and did not have the required documentation to prove it.

Some children, often travelling on their parents’ passports, were never formally naturalised and many moved to the UK before the countries in which they were born became independent, so they assumed they were British. In some cases, they did not apply for passports. The Home Office did not keep a record of people entering the country and granted leave to remain, which was conferred on anyone living continuously in the country since before 1 January 1973.

What is the government doing to resolve the problem?

A new Home Office team was set up to ensure Commonwealth-born long-term UK residents would no longer find themselves classified as being in the UK illegally. But a month after one minister promised the cases would be resolved within two weeks, many remain destitute.

Photograph: Douglas Miller/Hulton Archive

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The packed meeting at parliament also heard from around half a dozen Windrush citizens wrongly targeted for immigration enforcement, who described how shocked and desperate they had become at the treatment they received.

Sarah O’Connor, one of many such cases highlighted by the Guardian, who was refused benefits despite having lived in the UK since she was six, told the assembled MPs and supporters that her plight had left her close to suicide.

“I’ve lived 51 years over here, I’ve worked 30-odd years, and got told I’m an immigrant, I’m not entitled to anything,” she said.

“When all this happened to me and I was told I was an immigrant, I wouldn’t cry in front of the job centre. I’d go home and I break down.”

The event, officially a gathering of the parliamentary all-party group on race and community, was organised by David Lammy, the Labour MP who chairs the group and has been a prominent voice on the Windrush issue.

Profile

How the Guardian broke the Windrush story

In November last year, Paulette Wilson (left), who has lived in the UK for more than half a century, spoke to the Guardian's Amelia Gentleman about her treatment at the hands of the Home Office - and revealed that she had been held at Yarl’s Wood detention centre and threatened with deportation. It was the first of a series of stories that developed a picture of how many members of the Windrush generation were being mistreated by the government under the so-called ‘hostile environment’ policy. By February, with other examples mounting, the government had relented in Wilson’s case, but faced acute criticism from Caribbean diplomats who urged the Home Office to adopt a “more compassionate” approach.

In March the story of Albert Thompson - who had lived in Britain for 44 years but was told to produce a passport or face a bill of £54,000 for cancer treatment - forced attention back to the growing crisis. After the Guardian reported a string of additional cases matters came to a head when Theresa May refused to meet with Caribbean diplomats to discuss the issue, prompted fury among opposition MPs and a wider media backlash. After days of negative publicity, the then home secretary, Amber Rudd, and May were forced to change tack and issued apologies, promised reforms – and eventually gave the Windrush generation a fast-track to citizenship.

Photograph: Fabio De Paola

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Nokes was among the first speakers, saying she did not expect the audience “to make me welcome this afternoon”.

She gave a personal apology to Paulette Wilson, a former cook in the House of Commons who was almost deported despite living in the UK for half a century, and was also at the meeting.

“Particularly Mrs Wilson, I wanted to say that I was personally sorry to you, and I mean that most sincerely,” Nokes said. “I recognise that we as a government have a huge job to do to regain trust. I do not underestimate that by one tiny jot.”

Nokes added: “I just wish to put, absolutely, formally on record, how sorry I am that this has happened on my watch, and how determined I am on my watch to get it right.”

Wilson was invited to speak later by Lammy, and spoke only to express her gratitude to those who assisted her. “Thanks to everyone for being human, and not racist,” she said, prompting loud applause.

Marshall – referred to in stories as Albert Thompson before his status was settled – said he had that same day finally received his first dose of the radiotherapy treatment he had been seeking.

“I’ve been trying a long time to table paperwork, and each time I’ve tried they tell me I’m illegal,” he said. “I keep telling them that I’m not, I’m British, and they didn’t believe me.”

Q&A

What are enforced departures?

There are three layers of state-enforced or enforceable departures of immigrants from the UK: deportations, administrative removals and voluntary departures.

Deportations apply to people and their children whose removal is deemed 'conducive to the public good' by the home secretary. They can also be recommended by a court.

Administrative removals refer to cases involving the enforced removal of non-citizens who have either entered the country illegally, outstayed a visa, or violated the conditions of their leave to remain.

Voluntary departures are people against whom enforced removal has been initiated; the term 'voluntary' simply describes how they leave. There are three sub-categories:

a) Those who depart via assisted voluntary return schemes.

b) Those who make their own travel arrangements and tell the authorities.

c) Those who leave without notifying the government.

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Elwaldo Romeo, who moved from Antigua to the UK when he was four, 59 years ago, and has lived and worked here continuously ever since, recounted the shock of being told he was not allowed to remain in the UK.

“Not a lot of people know this but my youngest brother has an OBE,” he said. “But what can I say? We, as black people, had that life, and we always had that life, and for that to be taken away by anybody is outrageous.”

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, told the event that the settling of many such cases was “a victory for decency around the country”, but warned that it was the “wholly avoidable” consequence of the government’s “hostile environment” immigration policy.

The treatment of the Windrush generation showed “a corrosion on our lives and a corrosion on our society”, he said.

Corbyn added: “If one thing has come out of this Windrush scandal, it’s been that a lot of people have woken up and begun to understand what kind of country we live in and what kind of country we want to live in.”

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, said the scandal had been “a moment of truth” for the Windrish generation, who she called “one of the most patriotic groups of British citizen you could find”.

Abbott said: “To be so loyal to this country, to be so patriotic, and to have such a work ethic, and be treated in the way they’ve been treated in recent years is a shame and a disgrace. It felt to a lot of them like the loyalty they had given this country was not being reciprocated.”

She added: “Let me say to you: our commitment is to hold the government to its word. This is not just a story for a week or two weeks.”

Abbott said similar cases were still taking place, as she saw from visiting the Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre.

“I have been to Yarl’s Wood, I have met women from that generation who are there, who have British children, who have lived in this country 30 odd years, and they are interned in Yarl’s Wood as if they were criminals,” she said.

The meeting also heard from Amelia Gentleman, the Guardian journalist who first reported on many of the cases. Lammy thanked her, saying to loud applause that “she has a place in all our hearts”.